Gloria Steinem’s latest crusade against inequality comes in the form of a sheer lip balm created with social justice beauty brand Lipstick Lobby.

Net profits from the glossy Vitamin E balm, named 'In the Clear,' benefit the unPrison Project, a female-led nonprofit organisation which offers female inmates mentorship and literacy programs, in addition to helping women plan for life after prison. The organization is the creation of Deborah Jiang-Stein, an inmate-turned-author and activist who was born in jail to a heroin-addicted mother.

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The unPrison Project's mission has never been more important. Female incarceration rates have been growing rapidly for decades, and at an alarmingly disproportionate rate for African American women. According to the Bureau of Justice Assistance, female inmates tend to enter jail in a vulnerable state, compared to male inmates, reporting greater incidences of mental health problems, substance abuse issues, and past physical and sexual abuse. Take into account the estimated 2.7 million children under the age of eighteen who have a parent in prison in the US, and the picture is stark: the ramifications of female incarceration are far-reaching in society.

ELLE.com spoke with Gloria Steinem about challenges facing female inmates in the US. And also about lip gloss.

What drew you to the UnPrison project and launching “In the Clear” with Lipstick Lobby?

I had known about the UnPrison Project for some time because I knew Deborah Jiang-Stein and had visited a women’s prison in Minnesota with her. The Lipstick Lobby was also a very worthwhile project that the two women in my office knew about. My office, like that of any movement person, becomes a little clearing house for projects and information. They realised this would be a great partnership.

What’s behind the name “In the Clear?”

First of all, I suggested lip gloss because it happens that I don’t wear lipstick, and I do wear lip gloss. [Laughs.] So, when they asked me to name it, I was trying to think of a name that would be significant to women who have lost their freedom. And as you know, as a magazine person, we’re always titling things and making blurbs as a form of poetry. I thought ‘In the Clear’ would be a positive phrase to an incarcerated women.

Human beings, from tribal days forward, have decorated their bodies. The question might be asked why men don’t do it in our culture. And the second question is: are we doing it out of joy or out of insecurity? If we feel unacceptable without make-up, that’s a problem. If we are doing it for positive reasons, it’s different.

Do you personally think make-up can empower women?

I wouldn’t use the word empower, but I would say make-up can make us feel more positive—or that we care enough about ourselves to use make-up can be a positive sign. The question is: do we feel unacceptable without make-up, because if so, that's a problem.

Women who have been incarcerated face discrimination that impedes most opportunities to have a second chance. As a society, how can we change this so that we don’t perpetuate systemic marginalisation?

We can change it in many ways. We can visit prisons and come to understand that the people in prison are very like us. We can look at our prison system and see that is a source of profit in some states—fortunately, not in New York state, it’s against the law to run a prison for profit—but, in many states, they are profit centers for corporations, both in building them and servicing them, providing the food and so on. Wagon Huts is a frequent profiteer of prisons.

I don’t believe that either schools or prisons should be a source of corporate profit. It means that the worse the service is, the greater the profit. In many states, it costs as much to keep a prisoner in a cell as it does to send them to Harvard. We should be using that money for education, which is a prime way of keeping people out of prison.

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Obviously, this country has a higher percentage its population in prison than any nation in the world. And much of is it about both the failure of our education system and the fact that prisons are profit centers for corporations.

It’s also very racially biased and class-biased: both who gets arrested and who gets sentenced.

Kate Powers

And here’s an example, talking about continued discrimination when you’re out of prison, an example from an older culture—an older and wiser culture—is that when someone had done something antisocial, they did indeed put that person in a solitary place for a while. Since we’re communal animals, it’s perhaps isolation is a universal punishment, you know, over thousands of years… but, it was not for a long time, unlike our solitary confinement. And also, when that person was brought back into the group, there was a long ritual amount of time in which everyone who knew that person told them every good thing they’d ever done. So, they were knit back into the group, rather than continuing to be condemned. It was the opposite of our system.

What do you most want people to understand about the issues facing female inmates in the US?

That there is very little logic—well, no, there is a logic, but it’s a racist and a biased kind… but, there is very little intrinsic reason in who is in prison and who is not. And if we visit the prison nearest us, we will find friends.

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What advice would you give to women about the part they can play, as individuals, in helping to empower women?

Well, I think each of us has unique opportunities and just needs to be open to them. If we, in general, remember to listen as much as we talk, especially if we have more power than the people we happen to be with that day (or if we have less power, if we remember to talk as much as we listen... which may be just as difficult since we might be used to hiding...) we will learn from each other's stories and experiences and other people will learn from ours. We just need to get rid of the 'should's and follow our instincts of empathy in the moment.

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